


The Turning Point

by mcgarrygirl78



Series: On and On [8]
Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Co-Parenting, Drama, F/M, Gen, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-03
Updated: 2017-03-03
Packaged: 2018-09-28 00:22:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10058834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcgarrygirl78/pseuds/mcgarrygirl78
Summary: Sometimes she treated therapy like testifying in court …the facts and nothing but the facts.  It wasn’t a place for emotions.  Except that therapy was the best place for emotions.





	

“Knock, knock.” Liv stuck her head into the office.

“Hi, Olivia.” Vicki looked up from her paperwork with a small smile. “C'mon in, I’ll be right with you.”

Olivia nodded, walking into the office and closing the door. She took a deep breath before sitting down on the couch. She felt so uncomfortable and it had been a long time since she'd felt that way in her doctor’s office. It had become a safe space, a good thing, but lately her life was turned upside down.

“Would you like some tea? Maybe a bottle of water?” Vicki signed the last of her paperwork, closed up her files, and put them in the outbox on her desk.

“Water is fine.”

“So our last two visits were unsatisfactory, for both of us I think. I honestly thought you’d find any reason to cancel your appointment today.”

“I thought about it.” Liv quietly thanked her as she took the bottle of water. Vicki sat down across from her. “I thought of running away again and pulling the covers over my head. Then I remembered how well that worked for the past 50 years. So I put on my big girl undies and came in.”

“Your anger is valid, Olivia. Even if you can barely articulate why you're feeling it, it still is. It’s part of my job to rein in some of the tangents it can take you on. The past two visits that proved difficult for me. How are you doing today?”

“OK.’

“How’s Noah?” Vicki asked.

“He's fine. He's in full summer mode and I'm reminded of how carefree the age of six should be. He's also looking forward to camp, which I'm glad of because it’s a costly venture. He was promoted to the second grade and his reading grade improved so much, he won an award. He's fine.”

“And work?”

“Work is busy.” Liv sipped her water. “I've scheduled speaking engagements in New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, and even Philly. I’ll be working more on the fight for backlogged rape kits and plan to be a thorn in the side of the mayor’s office. We’re trying to get allocation of city funds for women who suffered from domestic abuse and are attempting to leave their abusers.”

“Any vacation plans for the summer?” Vicki asked.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“There's not enough time.” Liv replied. “I don’t have enough time for a lot.”

“Have you ever considered making time? Self-care is very important and what you do is emotionally draining. You need at least a week away from it; I would recommend two. Start with five days away from the concrete jungle of the five boroughs. Do any of your friends have vacation plans?”

“I don't know. Rafael and Trevor have turned vacationing into a part-time job. They love going away together but they have each other. I guess if I was happily married then I would love it too. I'm seeing Melinda for dinner on Thursday evening; she and her sisters do something together every summer. There have been times when she's offered to make me an honorary Warner sister. I don’t want to impose.”

“You're an only child…it’s not exactly your fault that you have no siblings.”

“I have Simon, but I barely know him. I know he lives outside of Boston with his family but I haven’t seen him in too many years to count.”

“Sisters aren’t always easy.” Vicki said. “I speak from my own experience and my experience as a psychiatrist. But sisterhood is wonderful; it can be lifesaving in a lot of ways.”

“I don’t have a sisterhood.” She said. “I don’t have a lot of friends.”

“Why do you think that is?”

“All I ever did was work. I would cancel plans or be unable to make events or have to run out in the middle. My friends were other cops but they don’t always offer the healthiest companionship. And I have difficulty offering myself up for deconstruction, which I assume is essential to friendship.”

“You said you don’t have many friends…you didn’t say no friends. Who are your friends?”

“Well Rafael and Trevor are my friends. Trevor is Noah’s godfather and Rafael and I worked together for years. I wasn’t always a good friend but he liked me more than I deserved, loved me I guess. Barba isn't perfect but I can say that he is a ride or die friend. And Trevor is so loving and cares deeply for Noah and me.”

“Well what's the nicest thing you’ve done for this ride or die friend?” Vicki asked. 

She'd heard plenty about Rafael Barba over the time Liv had been her client but sometimes it was hard to get the former cop to talk in more than the abstract. Sometimes she treated therapy like testifying in court …the facts and nothing but the facts. It wasn’t a place for emotions. Except that therapy was the best place for emotions. She’d been getting a lot better before their progress came to nearly a screeching halt. Vicki thought she might know why it was happening. What was more important was that Olivia figure out why, acknowledge and accept it, then work to get past the obstacle.

“I told Noah that we couldn’t adopt a kitten because Uncle Rafi is allergic to them. I didn’t want my house to be a bad place for him.”

“That was very nice of you. What about your other friends?”

“Melinda is a friend. Did I ever tell you that she talked me through saving her life when a grieving mother shot her in the morgue? Melinda is badass. She told me about Simon and about Noah’s biological father; she didn’t have to do those things.”

“Beyond cop work and saving lives, how have you and Melinda been friends to each other?”

“I didn’t have much of a life beyond cop work and saving lives.” Liv replied with a self-deprecating smirk. “But Melinda is a wonderful human being and the world is a better place because she's in it. She’s smart, kind, warm; a total fighter. If the zombie apocalypse comes she has to be in the car with me. Fin too; I'm not sure we’d make it without Fin.”

“Fin Tutuola?” Vicki looked through the file in her lap. “You guys worked together for twenty years.”

“Yes. He was the only one I trusted to disclose to after I was assaulted. Fin has taken bullets for me, literally and figuratively. He never turned his back on me, not ever, even when I went Liv on him.”

“What does going Liv on him mean?”

“I start shutting down, erecting walls, being evasive, and sometimes I just lash out. But Fin always had my card. He would back off sometimes, bide his time. Other times he put the armor on and charged right in. Not many people were willing to really do that; really dive into the shit with me. Some said they were but they weren't. The way I am sometimes it’s a miracle I have any friends at all. I just…I was trying to survive.”

“Do you consider Ed a friend?” Vicki asked.

“No.” Liv shook her head.

“Why not?”

“We were enemies for many years, I remember that clearly. That wasn’t because of who we were as people but the jobs we did. Then suddenly we weren't enemies anymore and I was really confused about what we were. Then we were lovers. I think we skipped some essential steps in the progression.”

“What about now?”

“We haven’t taken those steps.” Liv said. “It’s too late now.”

“So you don’t consider Ed a friend but you're willing to let him adopt Noah and be his father?”

“Doesn’t Noah deserve a father?” Liv countered.

“Certainly, but that doesn’t answer my question. A counter question never does, for future reference. You see Ed as a good father. You see him as good enough for Noah, who you’ve acknowledged more than once is the most important person in your life. But you don’t see him as a friend. What do you see him as?”

“I don't know. I've been thinking about that a lot these past few weeks and have been coming up short.”

“You told me when he came back into your life that you two were making a concerted effort to be friends.” Vicki said. “You wanted that, and wanted to co-parent Noah. Has something changed?”

“He's seeing someone.” Liv replied.

“OK.”

“The entire conversation makes me very uncomfortable.”

“How so? Is the relationship serious?”

“He says they're just friends but they're clearly friends with benefits.”

“Male or female?” Vicki asked.

“Oh God, Ed is the straightest man I've ever met. Scratch that, he's the third straightest man I've ever met, which means he's the straightest man most people will ever meet.”

“So he has a girlfriend?” Vicki smirked.

“Not to hear him tell it, and maybe that’s what makes me so uncomfortable. When we were together he always wanted more from me. Now all of a sudden he's just into casual sex? What man in his mid-50s has casual sex?”

“Probably way more than we like to think about it. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with casual sex between consenting adults. You’ve had it in your life, haven’t you?”

“Not recently.” Liv shook her head. “I just feel like he's keeping things from me where this woman is concerned and I can't figure out why. Does he think he can have his cake and eat it too? I don't know. That’s why I'm uncomfortable. And we had a falling out about it recently.”

“What kind of falling out?”

“It was barely spoken above a whisper but it was intense. I had to take Noah over to his place; I had a work emergency on a Saturday morning. The woman had spent the night with him. It was awkward, to put it mildly.”

“So you’ve met her?” Vicki asked.

“Briefly.”

“You want to tell me about her?”

“Not particularly.” Liv shook her head.

“OK.”

“I only met her for a moment or two. Noah liked her though; she stayed and had breakfast with them.”

“How did you feel about that?”

“I hated it but we had imposed on him. Ed says he didn’t have enough time to tell me that he wasn’t alone. You just make time for something like that. Noah is impressionable…every women he sees with Ed is dad’s girlfriend.”

“You have male friends. Does Noah think of Rafael, or Fin, as your boyfriend?”

“No Vicki, but he knows them.”

“And he’ll get to know Ed’s friends too and there won't be any confusion.”

“Maybe.”

“Do you not want that to happen?” Vicki asked.

“I don't know. I was so uncomfortable and maybe I didn’t handle the situation as well as I should have but it’s over now so…yeah.”

“It’s not over. Weeks have gone by since it happened but it’s still foremost in your mind. Why?”

“Probably because my brain has a shitty way of making me relive things I'd rather forget.” Liv replied.

“Why do you want to forget it?”

“It was uncomfortable.”

“You keep using that word. How did you feel Liv?”

“Like a third wheel. It was like I had walked in on them in some afterglow and I didn’t like it. It wasn’t a situation I should've ever been in…it was none of my business. And Ed could've prevented it but claimed he didn’t have enough time. My son having to see dad and sleepover Barbie was uncomfortable.”

“Sleepover Barbie, ouch.”

“Alright, that was mean. She isn't some too young for him girl that’s barely older than his daughter. I'm not good at assessing women’s age but she was probably in her 40s…I guess. She was gorgeous, and wasn’t wearing a stitch of makeup.”

“It seems as if you're angry as well.” Vicki said.

“Maybe.” Liv drank some water. “Like I said, it wasn’t my business. I was thrust into a situation that I didn’t want to be a part of so maybe I am angry.”

“From what you tell me, Ed doesn’t keep things from you. He told you about Michelle even before that morning.”

“He could've kept it.” Liv mumbled. She would leave out the fact that she had asked him directly who Michelle was when he brought up her name.

“So you feel discomfort and anger. Do you feel anything else?”

“No.” Liv shook her head.

“You don’t feel jealous? Maybe just a little envious.”

“No! Why would I, Vicki? I am not jealous.”

“You're adamant about that.”

“How many goddamn adjectives do you plan ascribing to me this evening?” Liv crossed her arms.

“I'm just trying to get to the bottom of how you were feeling, Olivia. There's been some big changes in your life since March. For a while you were doing well integrating those changes into the life you were rebuilding for yourself. In the past few weeks I've seen you reverting back to behaviors that show things are not OK. I won't say you're spiraling but…”

“I am not jealous of Michelle.” Liv said it firmly.

“Alright.” Vicki nodded.

“I just didn’t like that Noah and I had to be in the middle of that, that’s all. I am not jealous of Michelle.”

“I hear you.”

“It’s been three plus years since Ed and I broke up, he has every right to move on with his life. I don’t care if he finds a nice woman to do that with, he just can't lie to me about it. That’s unacceptable.”

“Do you feel like you’ve made a mistake?” Vicki asked.

“In what way?”

“Do you feel it was a mistake to bring Ed back into your life so fully after a long absence?”

“I did it for Noah.” Liv said.

“You’ve done a lot of things for people you love that end up being to your detriment.”

“OK, you got me there.”

“I know you two had a very intimate relationship once. You felt something deeply for him. You sat in this office and said that you were still in love with him.”

“I'm not.”

“No?”

“No, Vicki. Ed was a better boyfriend than most I had. I could argue he was the best boyfriend I ever had. I know how deeply he cares for Noah and that being a good father is a top priority. My son deserves all that love he's getting and also having Ed’s family as his own since I don’t have a family to give him. I'm alright with that. I just have to find a safe space in there somewhere.”

“Have you said that to Ed?”

“He doesn’t deserve to know my deepest, innermost secrets, worries, and fears. That’s what I pay you for.”

“True. But if you don’t trust him with that information then how are you ever going to get there? What is your idea of a safe space in there anyway?”

“I'm tired of feeling guilty and regretful. That’s not Ed’s fault; his presence brings out the best in me and the worst in me too. I want to be friends because he's a good guy and I know he cares about me. Every time I try to be genuine, I just trip over my feet. We fell into each other so beautifully all those years ago but it wasn’t long before everything became an uphill battle. I can't blame Ed entirely; it’s that way with every boyfriend I ever had.”

“Why do you think that is?” Vicki asked.

“Because I'm damaged. I don’t think I'm ever going to be able to let go and love. I've only done it once; it was the wrong thing to do and it nearly destroyed me. I push people away because I can't handle it and I don’t want them to eventually hate me. I want Ed to be happy and maybe I am a little jealous of Michelle but it’s not because she might be his girlfriend. It’s because he's happy. Bad things have happened to him, he's seen tough times, but he's not a mess. I envy him.”

“What do you think letting go might feel like?”

“I know what it felt like the one time I did it. There was nothing exhilarating about it; it was like giving in. I knew with everything in me that I shouldn’t but I did anyway. And I regretted…I still regret it. Now I can't do it even when I want to, even when things will probably be OK, because of what happened that one time.”

“You're talking about Elliot.”

“I'm talking about a lot of things.” Liv said.

“You said one time. Are you talking about Elliot?”

“Will I ever be free of him?” she countered with a question of her own.

“Why don’t you start by telling me if you're talking about him?” Vicki asked.

“Yes.” Liv bit back the scream so desperate to come from her diaphragm. “Don’t ask me anything else.”

“OK. I never want to put you in a place where you don’t feel safe, Liv, that’s not what this is all about. But you have to understand that some hard things will have to come out too.”

“I never slept with Elliot, he was married.” She said.

“He was separated for a little while to, if I recall.”

“He was busy sleeping with other women then; he didn’t have time for me.”

“I see.” Vicki wrote something down in her file. “Time is almost up so we should probably end here. I'm going to give you a homework assignment.”

“Are you serious?”

“It’s not hard, I promise. You're meeting with Melinda for dinner on Thursday; I want you to talk to her about a friend vacation. Take a cruise or visit a national park for some excellent hiking. But I want you at least 500 miles away from Manhattan and I want you gone for five days. You deserve it and while I don’t usually do this, I'm going to say doctor’s orders. You need to breathe some different air.”

“I’ll talk to her.” Liv said.

“Say it like you mean it.” Vicki said.

“I will talk to her.” She said. “I can leave Noah with Ed and I know he’ll be just fine; it’s a good idea. Maybe if I can't let go of everything, I can let go of a thing or two.”

“Absolutely. This will be a long process, Olivia. No doubt that you’ve made changes in the past year and have taken strides; I don’t want to belittle that. But you're 53 years old and have been through hell. Sometimes it can take a patient two or three breakthroughs and the walls come crumbling down. Sometimes…”

“It’s like taking a pick axe to the Great Wall of China.” Liv said.

“Yes.” Vicki nodded. “But you did well today. You talked about what's been bothering you the past few weeks and why. Now it’s time to find healthy ways to move past it.”

“Right.”

“I'm here to help you. We can set you up for next Monday at 5:30 if you can make it.”

“I can make it.”

“Good.” Vicki got up from her chair and walked across the room to her desk. “Over the next four days maybe you can write down what you're thinking, feeling, and why. Maybe organize some bullet points for our next meeting; what we can talk about to help you start moving forward again. It’s overwhelming sometimes and when you don’t know where to start sometimes it’s just easier not to start at all. Tackling it, even if you have to plot it like a book, is a worthwhile endeavor. It’s a form of therapy as well.”

“Sometimes I think everything I do in life but work and take care of Noah is therapy.”

“Work is therapy, Olivia. You’ve dedicated your life to helping women and children who never got the help that you and your mother needed. And mothering Noah is definitely therapeutic. From what we've discussed here about your own childhood, I would respectfully disagree that mothering Noah isn't therapy.”

“Maybe.” She stood and took the card that Vicki handed her. Liv put it in her pocket. “I’ll see you on Monday.”

“Yes. And as always, if you need anything between now and then please don’t hesitate to call the office. I’ll do what I can to help.”

Liv nodded and walked out of the office. It wasn’t until the elevator doors closed in front of her that she started to cry. It wasn’t the first, tenth, or even fiftieth time that she'd cried after therapy. The tears cascaded down her face like a waterfall and she let them. Usually Liv would put her face in her hands; staunch the flow of tears and muffle her sobs. 

She didn’t bother doing that today. Down in the nondescript lobby, she sat for a little while and got herself together. She checked her face and knew there was no point in reapplying makeup. She just didn’t want to look too wrecked as she made her way to the train. There was still more she had to do…the day and evening were not over yet.

***

“Thank you so much for staying with Noah.”

“You never have to thank me, we always have a blast together.” Ed smiled. “And I always have time to be dad. I’ll see you guys on Thursday.”

“Well, you're going to see Noah but I'm meeting up with Melinda for dinner so I’ll be gone most of the evening. Don’t worry though, I should be home by 8:30.”

“Alright. I'm glad you're going out and having a nice time with a friend.”

“Can I talk to you about something before you go?” Liv asked. 

She had almost skipped it but this needed to be done. She could tell that Ed was doing his best to make friendly conversation but was failing. Ever since going to his apartment and seeing Michelle, things had been strained. Things had actually been borderline hostile but it was all so covert…clipped tones, one word answers, and curt nods. It was driving Olivia out of her mind and she had enough doing that. This needed to come to an end.

“Sure.”

Ed’s answer was reluctant. He didn’t want to have any more heart to hearts with Olivia. Of course he was being cordial, even overly so for Noah’s sake. If there was one thing Ed was an expert in it was biting his tongue with an ex for the appearance of harmony. 

But the truth is he was beginning to the think it was a good idea to stay as far away from Olivia as he possibly could unless it pertained to Noah. The legal papers hadn’t been drafted and signed yet. He didn’t want to piss her off and lose his son. Ed had been here before; the ice was thin. So if he had to smile and nod until his jaw hurt and his neck ached then he was willing to do that.

Clearing his throat and hitching up his shorts a bit, Ed sat down on the couch. Liv sat down beside him and he was suddenly struck with both déjà vu and nausea. He held it together but really felt sick. What the hell was she about to drop on him now?

“These past few months have been so good for Noah.” She said. “He has two involved parents and I see such happiness in him. Just the help you’ve been with his schoolwork and his approach to it has been amazing. I don’t want that to change.”

“Neither do I, Liv.”

“But clearly there is some kind of disconnect between you and me. We've tried very hard, maybe too hard, to be friends and a part of each other’s lives. It hasn’t been a good situation for me. I'm really not capable of articulating why at the moment, it’s something I'm working through, but I'm falling a little backwards in my self-care and general well-being.”

“I'm sorry to hear that.” Ed said. “That’s not what I want.”

“The situation with Michelle made me reexamine a lot of things, and one of those things is that you’ve completely moved on with your life. Of course you have, we broke up over three years ago and that’s the normal thing to do. But I'm still working through things that happened between us then. I'm still working on issues from a decade ago and even four decades ago. 

“Trying to jump back into being friends like everything is fine was a bad idea. I'm not there yet; I don’t know when I will be. And it’s OK, at least I'm in the right place to know how important your love and guidance is to Noah. I support that, 150%. I just have to draw a line in the sand with you and me.”

“I think the both of us have been trying too hard to recreate something that may never have been there in the first place.” Ed said. “I clearly remember being enemies, I remember being lovers, but I don’t remember a time when we were just friends.”

“It’s not just me?” Liv put her hand on her chest and let out a little chuckle of relief. “I was feeling like such an ass about this. I felt like I must repressed something or I was putting too much fault on you, or I don't know. I thought it was just me so I tried to pretend that everything was OK.”

“Here’s the deal, I'm always gonna be Noah’s dad. And I'm always going to have your back because you're Noah’s mom. But we don’t have to pretend that that makes us something we’re not.”

“So what should we call ourselves?” Liv asked.

“We don’t need to label ourselves as anything but parents.” Ed replied. “We’re two people who live separate lives from one another but always come together when we need to be Noah’s mom and dad. Other than that we remain cordial, respectful, but also distant when it comes to certain personal parts of our lives.”

“Alright.” She nodded.

“I don’t want to overstep,” Ed clarified. “This is your conversation and your feelings, Liv. The floor is yours; please don’t let me talk over you.”

“I didn’t know how to tell you…I wasn’t sure how to feel. I didn’t want to hurt your feelings or assume that I was hurting your feelings because you’ve been nothing but good to us, Ed. I want you to know that. This is about me and getting to a place where I feel safe and secure in the decisions I'm making. 

“So often I get along so as not to make waves but it always comes back to bite me. When I struggled just to talk to you I became contrary and then combative. It’s a pattern of mine. It was affecting us being in a good partnership for raising Noah. And that’s the one thing we know we want to be.”

“Absolutely.” He nodded.

“So you'll spend Thursday afternoons and evenings here with Noah. Also either Saturday or Sunday afternoons and soon Friday night into Saturday or Saturday into Sunday overnight trips.”

“Right. And if you need me to step in at any time because something is pressing on your plate, you can call or text.”

“I want to do that sparingly.” Liv said. “You have a life too and while I know how much you enjoy Noah’s company we don’t want to infringe on the comforts you’ve create for yourself. You deserve your life too.”

“That’s fair.” Ed said. “Just promise that if you really need me for Noah you won't let that be a factor. If I really can't do it, or am in the middle of something I will tell you. I don’t want any situation like what happened with Michelle to happen again. That wasn’t fair to either of you.”

“I promise…and thank you.”

“Well, I’ll get going now. I know we said we’d let the apologies swirl the drain but I am sorry that you were feeling lost and that I had anything to do with it. I don’t want that to be us, Liv. I have your back always, I mean that.”

“The blame falls mostly on me. I wanted to keep the peace, for Noah, but there are ways to discuss something bothering you without causing a war. It’s an unhealthy habit of people who had childhoods like mine…and adulthoods like mine.”

“I’ll see you on Thursday.” Ed stood from the couch and grabbed his backpack from beside the coffee table.

“Be safe going home.”

“I will.”

She didn’t walk him to the door, just watched him go from across the room. Afterward, Liv walked over and locked up behind him. Her next stop was Noah’s room, where she spent a few minutes just leaning on the doorframe and watching him sleep. He really was happy, thrilled to have a mom and dad in his life. Liv even let it slide that most of the time he seemed to like Ed more. The dad thing was new and he deserved the honeymoon phase. 

In the kitchen Liv thought about dinner while pouring herself a generous glass of wine. She didn’t want anything too heavy but it was a bad idea to end the night on an empty stomach. There was a small platter of lunch meat, cheese, and veggies in her fridge. That would be just fine. With dinner and drink in hand, Liv moved into the bedroom.

She shed her work clothes almost like a second skin too heavy upon her shoulders. For a little while she wasn’t even going to bother with pajamas; there was no shame in lying around in a nice pair of comfortable underwear. Having exhausted _Old Christine_ until her next rewatch, and not in the mood to think too hard with _Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D_., Olivia wasn’t going to be able to spend her night with Clark Gregg. Her second choices were Kevin Spacey or Jensen Ackles…a quick coin toss chose _House of Cards_.

It was time to relax. She'd done something very difficult and got through it virtually unscathed. Being honest felt good, made her feel lighter. There were still challenges and obstacles coming but that was life and they never went away. 

If Liv could just remain honest and stand up for herself then she would be alright. Ed made that easier than other people in her life had over the years and she was grateful. She took a big step this evening. More importantly, she felt relief instead of regret. She had done the right thing and refused to let the self-doubt creep in. Noah was going to get all that he needed, and now hopefully his mom and dad would too.

***


End file.
